Commentary: Electronics IP Industry - A February 2006 Update

In their
September 2003,
December 2003,
February 2004,
May 2004,
August 2004,
November 2004,
February 2005,
May 2005,
August 2005 and
November 2005Electronics IP Industry Commentaries the authors examined the recent financial histories and future outlooks of the remarkable phenomenon of Electronics Intellectual Property (IP) providers, a niche that has emerged in its own right to claim a substantial amount of revenue in the world of Electronics Design Automation. We had arbitrarily selected eight (8) publicly-traded companies originally (then called the "Group-of-8" or "G8"), as representative of the current financial state of the Electronics IP industry. At the end of 2004, ARM completed its acquisition of Artisan Components, Inc., thereby reducing our "G8" to "G7". Accordingly, in this February 2006 Commentary, we look at the financial performances of the "G7" Electronics IP vendors during the fourth quarter as well as the full year 2005.

For the "G7" companies above, we assume that all of their revenues are Electronics IP sales and directly related IP services.

Recent Electronics IP News Highlights

According to the
Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), worldwide sales of semiconductors set a new record at $227.5 billion in 2005, an increase of 6.8% from the $213.0 billion reported in 2004. Worldwide sales for the fourth quarter were $59.86 billion, up by 2.0% from third-quarter sales of $58.67 billion, and up by 8.6% from sales of $55.10 billion in the fourth quarter of 2004. SIA forecasts that worldwide sales of semiconductors will grow by 7.9% in 2006, to $245 billion.

SIA President George Scalise noted that the semiconductor sales data reflect the continuing shift of electronics manufacturing operations to the Asia-Pacific region in general and to China in particular. He said, "Sales of semiconductors in the Asia-Pacific region reached $9.3 billion in December 2005 -- a 20% increase from December 2004. This region represented 46.6% of the global market for microchips at year's end. The largest share of the market is in China, which has become the world's leading manufacturer of electronics products."

According to industry analyst firm
Gartner, worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $257.7 billion in 2006, a 9.5% increase from 2005 revenue of $235.3 billion. In 2005, the market grew 7%. So Gartner's figures are slightly higher than the SIA's. Gartner expects a mild slowdown in 2007 with growth of 7%, followed by a cyclical market peak in 2008.

Andrew Norwood, research vice president for Gartner's semiconductor research group, said, "The supply of semiconductor devices is becoming more constrained, and the downward pressure on the average selling prices of devices seen in 2005 has eased. Any lengthening of device lead-times in coming months will be seen as further evidence of a tightening market."

How did the Electronics IP G7 perform in the Fourth Quarter of 2005?

On the
revenue front,
Table 1 below reveals that the G7's combined Q4 2005 performance was up 20% year-over-year. Percentage-wise, MoSys led the pack with 97% growth. ARM's significant year-over-year growth is due largely to its acquisition of Artisan at the very end of 2004. Ceva, Logic Vision and Virage Logic had year-over-year declines in the vicinity of 10%.

On a sequential quarterly basis, the G7 had revenue growth of nearly 8%. MIPS led the pack with 37%. Rambus and LogicVision both had good growth at 15.5% and 12.3%, respectively. MoSys and Ceva were the only decliners relative to the just prior quarter with drops of 42% and 10%, respectively.

As shown in
Table 2 below, in Q4 2005 the
combined earnings of the G7 were $30.2 million, a 92% rise compared to the $15.7 million in the fourth quarter of last year, and a 21% increase relative to the $25 million in the just prior quarter. Only Rambus, MIPS and ARM were profitable in the 4th quarter of 2005. The same three firms were the only ones with improved earnings relative to the quarter a year earlier (last column in
Table 2). However, Rambus dropped substantially on a sequential quarterly basis. MoSys and Virage Logic also declined sequentially. MIPS was the largest gainer on a sequential basis with ARM a close second.

Q4 2005 Results of Individual Electronics IP Providers:

On January 31, 2006
ARM Holdings plc reported results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year, the period ending December 31, 2005. Total revenue for the quarter was £62 million, an increase of 51% from the £41 million in the fourth quarter of 2004 and an increase of 7.2% from the £58.6 million in the third quarter. Product revenue was £58.8 million, accounting for 94% of total revenue. This was a 54% increase year-over-year and a 6% increase sequentially. Service revenue was £4 million, accounting for 6% of total revenue. This was an increase of 20% year-over-year and increase of 11% sequentially. In terms of US dollars, total revenue was $109 million, an increase of 40% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. Product revenue was $102 million and service revenue was $7 million.

The Processor Division (PD), formerly the original ARM, had revenues of $66.5 million, while the Physical IP division (PIPD), the Artisan division established after the acquisition at the end of 2004, had revenues of $21.8 million.

Warren East, Chief Executive Officer, said, "2005 has been another successful year for ARM and we enter 2006 well placed to build on our market-leading position. Q4 was an excellent quarter for our processor division with our new flagship Cortex®-A8 product winning four high-profile industry awards and initial deliveries of the next two Cortex products being made to lead partners. These innovative products underpin license revenues in 2006. We have also made substantial progress in positioning the combination of physical IP and processor IP in order to realize the anticipated financial and technological benefits in 2006 and beyond."

On January 26, 2006
CEVA, Inc reported results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year, the periods ending December 31, 2005. Total revenue in the quarter was $7.7 million, a decrease of 8% from the $8.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2004 and a decrease of 16% from the third quarter of 2005. This was 4% below the low end of guidance for Q42005. Licensing revenue was $4.6 million (60% of total revenue), compared to $5.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2004. In the 4th quarter of 2005, the Company signed ten new license agreements. Royalty revenue was $1.9 million (25% of total revenue), slightly down from $2.0 million a year earlier, and 32% higher than the prior quarter. Revenue from services was $1.2 million, compared to $1.3 million a year ago and to $1.2 million last quarter.

In Q4 2005, 23 licensees shipped 31.5 million units, 15% higher than Q4 in the prior year. Sixteen licensees paying per unit royalties shipped 19.5 million units, the remaining seven licensees shipped 12 million units and were working off prepaid royalties.

Net loss for the quarter was $147K, compared to a net gain of $187K a year earlier and a loss of $530K in the just prior quarter.

On January 31, 2006
LogicVision, Inc announced the results for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2005, the periods ending December 31, 2005. Total revenue for the quarter was $2.47 million, a decrease of 9.5% from the $2.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2004 and a 12% increase from the $2.2 million in the just prior quarter. License and product revenue was $1.3 million in Q4 and accounted for 54% of total revenue. This was a decrease of 18% year-over-year and a rise of nearly 2% sequentially. Service revenue was $1.1 million and accounted for 46% of total revenue. This was an increase of 2.6% year-over-year and a 27% increase sequentially.

Net loss for the quarter was $2.5 million, compared to a net loss of $2.3 million in the same quarter a year ago and compared to a net loss of $2.9 million the previous quarter. During the last quarter, LogicVision announced and executed a restructuring plan, incurring restructuring charges of $0.7 million.

James T. Healy, president and CEO of LogicVision, said, "We are pleased that we are on a growth path again. We had annual bookings of $13.5 million in 2005. This is a 37% increase over 2004 and positions us well for 2006."

On January 19, 2005
MIPS Technologies, Inc report results for its second quarter of fiscal 2006, the period ending December 31, 2005. Total revenue for the quarter was $16.4 million, an increase of 5.4% compared to the $15.5 million in the same quarter a year ago and an increase of 37% from $11.9 million in the just prior quarter. Revenue from royalties was $8.9 million, accounting for 54.5% of total revenue. This was an increase of 18% year-over-year and an increase of 11% sequentially. Contract revenue was $7.5 million, accounting for 45.5% of total revenue. This was a decrease of 6% year-over-year but an increase of 91% sequentially. There were six new licenses agreements signed in the quarter.

Net income for the quarter was $2.4 million, a decrease of 32% from the $3.5 million a year ago but an increase of $3.8 million from the net loss of $1.5 million in the just prior quarter. Beginning in the September 2005 quarter, the Company recognized equity-based compensation expense pursuant to the fair value method under SFAS 123R. This expense for this quarter was $2.1 million. Expenses in the prior quarter included $3.3 million in a settlement with 32 former Danish employees and the union that represented them.

On November 7, 2005, MIPS promoted Brad Holtzinger to the position of vice president of worldwide sales. Mr. Holtzinger, most recently vice president of sales, the Americas at MIPS Technologies, succeeds Jack Browne, who assumes the position of vice president of marketing. On January 4, 2006, MIPS promoted Mervin S. Kato to the position of chief financial officer. Mr. Kato was most recently vice president of finance and corporate controller.

Merv Kato, chief financial officer of MIPS Technologies, said, "We are pleased with our second quarter results and the return to more normal levels of licensing activity." John Bourgoin, president and CEO of MIPS Technologies, said "We are particularly pleased that a significant portion of our license revenue came from new technology products, indicating that our superior value proposition is well-recognized. Our royalties in the markets other than video games reached record levels, indicating ongoing and broad based growth in the production of MIPS-based products worldwide. "

On February 15, 2005
Monolithic Systems Technology, Inc (MoSyS) announced the financial results for Q4 and its fiscal year, the periods ending December 31, 2005. Total revenue for the quarter was $2.4 million, as compared to $1.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2004 and $4.1 million in the third quarter of 2005. Total Q4 2005 revenue was in the middle of the firm's updated guidance. There was a $1 million deferral of revenue associated with licenses of the new 1T-SRAM CLASSIC Macros. License revenue at $1.3 million, accounting for 56% of total revenue, rose by a factor of more than 10 from the $118 thousand in 4Q of 2004, but it declined 58% from the prior quarter. License revenue from NEC accounted for 30% of total revenue. During the quarter, MoSys recorded licensing revenue from 15 different chip development projects, compared to 16 projects in the previous quarter. Royalty revenue at $2.4 million, accounting for 44% of total revenue was essentially flat year-over-year but rose 19% sequentially. MoSys recorded royalty revenue from 17 different licensees as compared to 15 licensees in the previous quarter.

Chet Silvestri, Chief Executive Officer of MoSys, said, "Although the revenue deferral impacted our actual results for the fourth quarter, we are pleased with the strength in overall bookings, the increase in new projects within the consumer multimedia and cellular handset market segments and the achievement of positive cash flow. The majority of fourth quarter bookings were for our new family of CLASSIC Macros, which began initial shipments during the quarter."

There have been significant management changes at MoSys. In October 2005, Mosys hired Dhaval Ajmera as VP of Worldwide Sales. He was previously VP of North American Sales at CEVA. Also in November, MoSys hired Hem Hingarh as vice president of engineering. Prior to joining MoSys, Hem was vice president of engineering at Hellosoft, Inc., an IP licensor of embedded system software for convergence mobile platforms. Also in November, MoSys announced that Mark Voll, the company's vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer, is leaving MoSys to pursue another career opportunity. Recall that Chet Silverstri joined MoSys as CEO at the end of July 2005, having been CEO at CEVA.

On January 19, 2006
Rambus, Inc. reported its results for the quarter and the year, the periods ending December 31, 2005. Total revenue for the quarter was $41.6 million, an increase of 8% from the $38.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2004 and a 15.5% increase from the $36 million in the prior quarter. Revenue from royalties were $34.7 million, accounting for 83% of total revenue, an increase of 6.5% year over year and an increase of 24% sequentially. The sequential increase in royalties is primarily due to the first quarterly royalty payment of $5.9 million from Infineon under the license agreement announced in March 2005. Contract revenue was $6.9 million accounting for 17% of total revenue. This was a 17% increase year-over-year and a decrease of 14% sequentially.

On January 2, 2006 Rambus announced the signing of a five-year patent license agreement for $75 million with Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. which grants AMD a license to Rambus patents.

Net income for the quarter was $9.4 million, a 43% increase over the $6.5 million a year earlier but a 35% decline from the $14.5 million in the just prior quarter. Rambus reported a pre-tax gain of $5.4 million on the repurchase of $35 million face value of its zero coupon convertible notes during the quarter.

Harold Hughes, president and chief executive officer at Rambus, said, "We are pleased with the results for the fourth quarter. We achieved record revenue and finished the year by signing an important patent licensing agreement with AMD for which payments will begin in 2006. We built a strong foundation this past year with achievements that demonstrate the value of our technology and give us a solid start to the new year."

On January 23, 2006, Rambus was authorized by its Board to repurchase up to an additional five million shares of its outstanding common stock over an undefined period of time.

In early February 2006, Rambus announced that Robert K. Eulau, VP and CFO, will resign from Rambus effective March 2, 2006 to pursue another opportunity.

On January 25, 2006
Virage Logic announced the results for its first quarter of fiscal 2006, the period ending December 31, 2005. Total revenue for the quarter was $13.7 million, a drop of 13.5% from the $15.9 million in the same quarter a year earlier but an increase of 7% from the $12.8 million in the just prior quarter. License revenue was $10.4 million, accounting for 76% of total revenue, a decline of 20% year-over-year but a rise of 4% sequentially. Revenue from royalties was $3.3 million, accounting for 24% of total revenue, an increase of 18.5% year-over-year and an increase of 19% sequentially.

Net loss for the quarter was $242 thousand, compared to a net gain of $1.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2005 and compared to a net loss of $28 thousand in the prior quarter. Net loss for the quarter included $1.9 million of stock-based compensation expense. Without the adoption of FAS123R, the company would have reported a net loss of only $95,000.

Adam Kablanian, Virage Logic's president and chief executive officer, said, "We believe that our strategy of capturing both 90- and 65-nanometer designs during this current upturn in the semiconductor industry is beginning to pay off as royalty revenues begin to ramp. At these advanced process nodes, our products hold a commanding technological lead over our competitors and offer customers key yield improvements and time-to-market advantages in implementing designs that utilize Virage Logic's semiconductor intellectual property."

Stock Market Prices of the G7 Electronics IP Providers

As shown in
Tables 3 and 4, and Figure 2 below, the combined stock prices for the G7 were down 33% in absolute dollars year-over-year but up 12% from the prior quarter. The average percentage change was down 31% year-over-year and up nearly 5% sequentially. During the quarter, the major stock indexes grew 1.2% year-over-year and nearly 2% sequentially.

ARM, with a rise of 1%, was the only firm whose stock price improved year-over-year. LogicVision had the steepest decline in stock price at -57%, while MoSyS had the smallest decline at about -12%.

On a sequential basis, Rambus and Virage Logic had substantial gains at 34% and 27%, respectively, with CEVA trailing at 21%. LogicVision had the largest sequential decline at almost -31%.

Calendar 2004 Electronics IP Vendor Performances

Note that the G7 IP providers have different fiscal years. The section below compares the last four reported quarters, nominally the calendar year 2005.

The combined revenues for the G7 in "calendar" 2005 were $748 million, an increase of 27% year-over-year. ARM was by far the leader at 54%, due mostly to its acquisition of Artisan at the end of 2004. Artisan had $84 million in revenue for 2004. Note if Aritisan revenue were included in the figure for 2004, the year-over-year increase for the G7 would have been only 11%. MoSys and Rambus gained over 10%. Ceva, MIPS and Virage Logic had single-digit percentage declines.

The combined earnings of the G7 for calendar 2005 were $104 million, a small increase over the $101 million in 2004. Combined earnings were approximately 14% of combined revenue, down from 17% in 2004. Again ARM has the greatest improvement relative to 2004. Artisan had net income of $15.5 million in 2004. Rambus was the only other firm to show a rise. MoSys had the largest decline.

For 2005
ARM had total revenue of $232 million, a 52% increase from the $28 million in 2004. Product revenue was £217 million, accounting for 94% of total revenue and a 57% increase year-over-year. Service revenue was £14.7 million, a 4% increase from 2004. In terms of US dollars, total revenue was $418.7 million, a 14% increase on the aggregate pro forma ARM and Artisan revenues of $367 million in 2004, and 18% up on the aggregate actual revenues of $355 million. Net income for 2005 was £41.9 million, a rise of 50% from the £28 million in 2004.

For 2005
Ceva had total revenue of $35.6 million, a decrease of 5.4% from the $37.7 million in 2004. Licensing revenue was $24 million was 64% of total revenue and down from $26.2 million a year earlier. There were a total of 27 new license agreements in the year 2005, compared to 24 agreements in 2004. Royalty revenue was $6.8 million, an increase of 13% from the prior year. Shipped units by licensees increased 8% to a record 115 million in 2005, compared to 106 million shipped in 2004. Net loss for 2005 was $2.27 million compared to a net gain of $2.3 million in 2004.

For calendar 2005
LogicVision had total revenue of $10.9 million, an increase of 7.8% from the $10.1 million in 2004. Net loss for year was nearly $10 million, compared to a net loss of $8.4 million in 2004. For the calendar year 2005,
MIPS had total revenue of $59.4 million, up 4.3% from the $56.9 million in calendar 2004. Net income for the period was $5.8 million, compared to $10.4 million in the prior year.

For calendar 2005
MoSys had total revenue of $12.3 million, a 13.5% increase from the $10.8 million in 2004. License revenue was $7.7 million, accounting for 63% of total revenue, an increase of 70%. Royalty revenue was $4.5 million, accounting for 37% of total revenue, a decrease of almost 15%. Net income for the year was $2.6 million, compared to $11.6 million in 2004.

Rambus had total revenue for the year of $159 million, up nearly 10% from the $145 million in 2004. Revenues from royalties were $130 million, accounting for 82% of total revenue and were up 8.5% from the $120 million in 2004. Contract revenue was $28.9 million, accounting for 18% of total revenue and was up 17% from the $24.7 million in 2004. Net income for the year was $33.7 million, just barely over the $33.6 million in 2004.

For calendar 2005
Virage Logic had revenue of $52.9 million, a decrease of 5% form the $55.7 million in calendar 2004. Net loss for the year was $789 thousand, compared to a net gain of $2.1 million in calendar 2004.

Stock Prices for the Year

Forecast Guidance from Individual IP Providers

The forecast from the six EDA companies who provided guidance calls for year-over-year and sequential growth for the next quarter at around 5.6%

Individual Company by Company Guidance

During the analysts conference call
ARM expressed confidence that next year would be an improvement, in line with market expectations. They expect more synergistic revenue from their two divisions. They see royalty momentum in both PD and PIPD.

For guidance
Ceva expects revenue for the next quarter to be in the range of $7.5 to $8.5 million, compared to $7.7 million in the quarter just completed. Ceva expects revenue for the full year 2006 to be in the range $35 to $37 million.

As guidance
LogicVision expects revenue in the next quarter to be in the range of $2.2 to $2.3 million, compared to nearly $2.5 million in the quarter just completed. Net loss in Q1 is expected to be in the range of $2.0 million to $2.2 million.

As guidance
MIPS expects revenue to grow 10% to 15% over the quarter just reported. Royalty revenue should increase 5% to 10% and license revenue 15% to 20%.

As guidance
MoSys expects revenue in the next quarter of $3 million to $4 million compared to $2.4 million in the quarter just completed and compared to $1.2 million for the same quarter last year.

As guidance
Rambus expects revenue in the next quarter to be in the range of $41 to $43 million, compared to $41.6 million in the quarter just completed. This quarter would be the first one to include expense of stock options. Litigation expense is expected to be in the range of $8 million to $10 million.

As guidance
Virage Logic expects revenue in the next quarter to be approximately $14.5 million to $15.0 million. Expected total revenues for the quarter are anticipated to include royalties of approximately $4.0 million to $4.5 million.